Railway footage in feature films and television...

[DY444]

13 hours ago, 37501 said:

I have a vague recollection of an early episode of the Bill which has a scene on the bank or road above Old Oak Common. There is a Large Logo Class 50 (50015 possibly) on the turntable. 
 

John

 

There was also an episode about railway trespass with a number of sequences between Sutton Common and West Sutton and featuring 4EPBs.  Filmed over a couple of Sundays iirc as there was no Sunday service on the wall of death at the time.

[Welly]

^^^

I remember that episode, there was a light engine as well - I think it was a 33?

[jetmorgan]

Another short film on Talking Pics TV...this one was about the South East of England...my neck of the woods. A few railway bits, some of steam at Chislet colliery and some of southern EMU's. Sadly the film isn't of great quality, I think it was one of those that got shown in cinemas back in the 60's (and probably in the 70's without realising how out of date it was)

Edited March 30, 2020 by jetmorgan

[John M Upton]

On 28/03/2020 at 08:28, DY444 said:

 

There was also an episode about railway trespass with a number of sequences between Sutton Common and West Sutton and featuring 4EPBs.  Filmed over a couple of Sundays iirc as there was no Sunday service on the wall of death at the time.

 

Saw that episode a couple of months back, the last scene where someone gets run down by a train cleverly switched to a Class 205 Thumper DEMU so it looked like the usual EMU but meant the power could stay off for the filming.  Only railway experts would have noticed the difference...

[Fenway Park]

Coulsdon North in photos 10 and 11, now no more. It was my local station for trips to school all those years ago.

[lmsforever]

Memories  didnt everyone look dull you forget we thought black was the only colour for clothes ,used to ride on 4subs very comfortable.

[Andy Kirkham]

On 26/02/2020 at 19:36, Rugd1022 said:

 

I'm guessing that was for 'The Magic Christian' Mike, with Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr...?

 

I see that The Magic Christian is on Talking Pictures TV this Saturday, but having read up a little about it I'm not sure I want to see it https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064622/reviews?ref_=tt_urv  seemingly very much "Of Its Time" - and not in a good way.

 

Of course if it had had a diesel-hydraulic in it , that would be a different matter.

Edited April 10, 2020 by Andy Kirkham

[Rugd1022]

1 hour ago, Andy Kirkham said:

 

I see that The Magic Christian is on Talking Pictures TV this Saturday, but having read up a little about it I'm not sure I want to see it https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064622/reviews?ref_=tt_urv  seemingly very much "Of Its Time" - and not in a good way.

 

Of course if it had had a diesel-hydraulic in it , that would be a different matter.

 

Appropriate that it's being shown now though, fifty years ago today The Beatles split up!

[cravensdmufan]

Tuned into ITV4 this week to The Professionals for an hour of 70's nostalgia.

 

Delighted to see fantastic footage of Paddington Station during the first 7 minutes of the episode "Rogue" from 1978.  Class 50s, Mk1 sleepers, Mk2, along with good station scenes.  Absolutely brilliant IMO.

 

Officially here on the ITV Hub https://www.itv.com/hub/the-professionals/L0845a0019 (requires sign in)

 

A lower quality YT version here (with Spanish subtitles!)  

 

 

EDIT: I've just watched the Paddington Station scenes on the ITV hub again, and it actually shows a tiny bit more of the Class 50 on Platform 1 than that on the YouTube version.  Must be where the film was chopped about when adding the Spanish subtitles.  The loco is clearly 50 049. Nice!

 

Also, I'm wondering how the film crew were accommodated on to such a busy Platform 1?  Maybe the TV company employed a huge number of "extras"!  Looking at the crowd closely, it seems that a good few are actually looking toward the camera while walking along the platform which would indicate they were actual passengers!

 

I wonder if @The Stationmastercould kindly give us some more background details of how these sort of filmings were organised on BR(W) back in the day?  I would imagine it was a lot more flexible in those days before tighter security, H&S, fear of insurance claims etc.?  

Edited April 11, 2020 by cravensdmufan
Additional comments as above

[whart57]

Lovely old "tank" Rover in one of those London Bridge shots

[The Stationmaster]

4 hours ago, Andy Kirkham said:

 

I see that The Magic Christian is on Talking Pictures TV this Saturday, but having read up a little about it I'm not sure I want to see it https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064622/reviews?ref_=tt_urv  seemingly very much "Of Its Time" - and not in a good way.

 

Of course if it had had a diesel-hydraulic in it , that would be a different matter.

The railway scenes in it aren't bad but regrettably a Class 47 was turned out for the filming because after sorting what the film makers really wanted from what they said the Producer thought he wanted I simply turned it into a Type 4 loco instead of specifying which sort of Type 4.

 

Because of the job I happened to be covering at that time I took the initial 'phone call from a young lady researcher who said they wanted to hire 'a blue Pullman' for the filming.  I think she nearly fainted when I told her roughly how much that would cost per day but I asked her if that was what she really wanted and she went off to make inquiries.  it turned out that what he wanted was 'a blue train' and the only 'blue train' he had heard of was the Pullman.  So I duly arranged and priced up a Type 4 loco plus stock in blue & grey livery (which it almost inevitably would be on the WR at that time) and tried to sort out what sort of locations they wanted.  In the event the latter bit was easy so I proposed the filming be done on the Henley branch - which would also suit them access wise etc.

 

Thus the station from which the train departs is Henley - very recognisably so for those who know it - with a suitable length of platform for the 'trolley chase' and the 'Scottish' station where they alight is a very minimally disguised Wargave,  c.3miles up the branch.  The location manager loved both as ideal for his purposes when he went to look so that was how they came to be accepted and used.  Filming was fitted in between the regular service trains and was all done on weekdays.

 

As for the rest of the film it is indeed very much of its time and while amusing in places it gave me the impression of trying at times to be too clever for its own good.  No - I didn't get invited to the premier or anything so first saw it when it was out on general release.  I doubt they invited anyone from BR after I'd sent them the bill

[smithlington smithe]

I’m not sure if this counts with it being a programme about Britain’s railways-Walking Britain’s lost railways with Rob Bell,but it did feature (in series 2 episode1) a little piece on Tunstead quarry in Derbyshire and Freightliner 66621.

[whart57]

I don't think anyone has mentioned the film The Railway Man based on the memoirs of Eric Lomax and starring Colin Firth as the middle aged Lomax still traumatised from his days as a POW of the Japanese.

 

Railway scenes include a pretty reasonable attempt to represent British railways c1970, with steam gone but the blue-grey plague yet to take hold. So green diesels and maroon Mk1 coaches

 

And unlike the classic Bridge over the River Kwai, Railway Man actually filmed the Death Railway scenes on location in Thailand. So we have the modern trains of the Bangkok-Kanchanaburi-Nam Tok line, filmed at Kanchanaburi and crossing the actual Kwai bridge, and a quite reasonable attempt to represent the wartime trains using old 4 wheel vans from the SRT and a preserved Thai steam engine given Japanese number plates. As the SRT loco was a Japanese import anyway this is the smallest of all subterfuges.

 

The Thai rolling stock for the 1970-80 era scenes does date from the period except that the livery was from the time the film was shot. Back in 1980 however the GEK diesels would have been on top link mainline work, not slumming it on a backwater like the Kanchanburi line

 

One last observation. One shot of a train crossing the Kwai Bridge looks as if it has been compressed sideways to fit the pcture format. Makes the loco and coaches look a bit like the Rovex "shorties" older rmweb readers might remember from childhood.

[luckymucklebackit]

UK scenes were shot at Bo'ness, SRPS.

 

Jim

[melmerby]

Just saw the start of "Half a Sixpence" with some very odd juxtaposition of scenery.

A horse and cart leaves a typical English village complete with multi-arch bridge over a wide slow moving river, goes a short distance and is in the Welsh mountains, complete with high peaks and rocky rivers, crosses a railway where what appears to be a Vale of Rheidol train passes underneath and next goes by the chalk cliffs of Southern England. Very odd.

But it did have a train!

[Andy Kirkham]

28 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Just saw the start of "Half a Sixpence" with some very odd juxtaposition of scenery.

A horse and cart leaves a typical English village complete with multi-arch bridge over a wide slow moving river, goes a short distance and is in the Welsh mountains, complete with high peaks and rocky rivers, crosses a railway where what appears to be a Vale of Rheidol train passes underneath and next goes by the chalk cliffs of Southern England. Very odd.

But it did have a train!

The former route (pre-1968) of the Vale of Rheidol passed underneath the Carmarthen line as it left Aberystwyth. There is a picture of the location (seldom photographed now I come to think of it) on page 15 of this magazine https://issuu.com/rheidolrailway/docs/issue_3_-_2018__hr_

[whart57]

Just finished watching The English Game on Netflix. Some frequent shots of a train and station that purports to be the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway in 1880 at Darwen and Blackburn. I have no idea where that was filmed nor how authentic the train is. All I can say is that it wasn't an Austerity 0-6-0 and a couple of BR Mk1s which used to be a TV producer's idea of a Victorian train.

[Ben B]

2 hours ago, whart57 said:

Just finished watching The English Game on Netflix. Some frequent shots of a train and station that purports to be the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway in 1880 at Darwen and Blackburn. I have no idea where that was filmed nor how authentic the train is. All I can say is that it wasn't an Austerity 0-6-0 and a couple of BR Mk1s which used to be a TV producer's idea of a Victorian train.

 

Keighley and Worth Valley was used for the railway scenes. Saltaire was used for some town shots, it was odd spotting an old workplace suitably disguised

 

And we saw the start of Half A Sixpence too, that was a bloody odd journey... bit surprised to spot the VoR.

[sir douglas]

only saw a bit while i was eating my tea, an episode of midsomer murders, barnaby goes to the house of a college professer's house to take a ford rally car. but when he pulls up in his own car to the house i noticed a grounded carriage or van body.

 

a quick look at the tv guide says series 12 episode 4, ive found it on youtube and flicked through to find any more shots but nothing decent or close up

 

the first 2 shots are at the begining of the episode with the carriage behind the wall and bush and the third is as described

 

[9C85]

On 17/02/2020 at 10:26, luckymucklebackit said:

Just finished binge watching the Netflix series "The Stranger". Set in Manchester there are a couple of railway sequences in the last two episodes, episode 7 features Stockport station and there are plenty of trains and due to changes of camera shots some inconsitancies are thrown up, a 350 EMU suddenly becomes a class 175 DMU in the reverse shot. The characters then board a heritage DMU and find themselves at Ramsbottom on the ELR. In the last eposide there is a chase sequence through the ELR sidings and amongst others classes 37, 47 and 50 are visible. A good watch as a series.

 

Jim

I saw the same episode. Whenever there is a scene in a TV show/film involving railways, at the end my wife says ' go on then, what was wrong with that?' And I reluctantly have to explain something like how  you wouldn't see a DVT on the end of a train on Downton Abbey

[ajwffc]

7 hours ago, luckymucklebackit said:

UK scenes were shot at Bo'ness, SRPS.

 

Jim

Also Perth was used the WCRC 37 and SRPS Mk1s 

[sir douglas]

you may also like the fiction and fantasy thread

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/124676-railways-in-fiction-and-fantasy/

[whart57]

15 hours ago, sir douglas said:

only saw a bit while i was eating my tea, an episode of midsomer murders, barnaby goes to the house of a college professer's house to take a ford rally car. but when he pulls up in his own car to the house i noticed a grounded carriage or van body.

 

a quick look at the tv guide says series 12 episode 4, ive found it on youtube and flicked through to find any more shots but nothing decent or close up

 

the first 2 shots are at the begining of the episode with the carriage behind the wall and bush and the third is as described

 

 

Interesting. Looks like what used to be called a road van, aka goods brake van, although horsebox is another possibility

[Dan Randall]

I watched an episode of Armchair Theatre (called “A Bit of a Lift”, from 1973), last night on Talking Pictures TV, which featured some nice blue DMU action (at Marylebone), at the end.

 

 

This was immediately followed by a film I’d never seen before, called “Take a Girl Like You” (1970), starring Hayley Mills and Oliver Reed.  The title sequence featured Ms Mills travelling in a blue/grey Mk1 coach, an outside shot showing a blue Class 47 at the head.

 

As the titles finished, the train (now hauled by a blue Hymek!), pulled into a station, but not any old station - it was my “home town” station at Slough and amazingly, the train was pulling into the Windsor bay platform!  Ms Mills then leaves the train and walks along the platform towards the exit, via the original pre-modernisation booking hall and through some lovely wooden doors, to the station forecourt, where she gets into a taxi.  The “Slough” part of SLOUGH STATION, is obscured by a movie prop sign, but I got such a thrill, seeing “my” station, as I remember it from the 60s & 70s and it’s a top quality colour film too.

 

I looked it up on ‘Reelstreets”, a web site that pinpoints locations used in movies and though not all the stills are railway related, it’s a brilliant snapshot of Britain as it was in 1970....

 

https://www.reelstreets.com/films/take-a-girl-like-you/

 

 

Regards

 

Dan

 

(With apologies, if either of the above have already been mentioned).

 

 

 

[Andy Kirkham]

10 hours ago, Dan Randall said:

 The “Slough” part of SLOUGH STATION, is obscured by a movie prop sign,

 

 

The sign displays a rather unorthodox version of the BR logo.